Earlier this fall I spent a week at the Southern Independent Booksellers’ Alliance Fall Trade Show.  But I spent very little time wandering the exhibit floor. Instead, I have the most fun just talking to people.  To booksellers, to find out what they were reading, and to authors to find out what they had been writing.  I love meeting the writers, because behind every story is their story—what made them write the book, why it was important to them, what they hope readers will get from it.

Deep Thoughts: 

Brett Lott told a table of us over dinner that he didn’t think the exploration of spiritual dilemmas were only to be found in Christian fiction.  “The great novels,” he said, “all address spiritual questions.”  This was his driving motivation for putting together Eyes to See, Volume Two—a collection of stories from some very familiar writers who you might not immediately think of as “spiritual” writers.  From Chesterton to Updike, each included story “…have a greater resonance than the sum of their words, and the wolds they render reveal the Truth that man is lost wihtout his creator God, and that man is found through his encounter with Him.”  Philosophical and questioning without being preachy or dogmatic, this story collection will make you re-evaluate some of your favorite authors. At least, it made me do so.

I met Karen Spears Zacharias, now on the editorial desk at the Fayetteville Observer, when she started writing giving interviews for the Lady Banks’ Commonplace Book newsletter. She’s a Georgia native whose father died in the Vietnam War. But that’s another book. A Southern Baptist herself, Zacharias’ new book Where’s Your Jesus Now? is an affectionate but pithy exploration on how fear affects and corrodes faith.  The book explores questions that the author has been asking herself as she covered feature stories for news organizations like The New York Times, Newsweek, and NPR.  How is it that faith can be so easily shaken by fear? Where is our confidence in God, she asks. Where is our hope?

So last month while the economy crashed around me, I took a deep breath, canceled most of my magazine subscriptions, downgraded my calling plan and cable package (that hurt), cut back on the gourmet cheese and wine, and signed myself up for health insurance.  The privation of not getting all the premium channels was more than made up for by the sense of security that I could walk into a doctor’s office and not go completely bankrupt. Then this month I received a letter that my premiums are going up almost $100!  Doesn’t that just figure? 

My idea of a “healthy lifestyle” shies away from diets and exercize fads and more towards basic common sense. I’ve gone through a lot of health books over the years, and these are the ones that are still on my shelf (in the bathroom, actually):

Our Bodies, Ourselves
Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom
Beauty Myth by Naomi Wolfe
Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book

The Cure Within
Mayo Clinic Book of Alternative Medecine
Natural Choices for Women’s Health by Laurie Steelman

Our Bodies, Ourselves
by the Boston Women's Health Book Collective
Touchstone Books, $26

I've had successive editions of this book ever since I was twenty and it has never let me down.  Besides, Julianne Moore says this is the best women's health reference book ever published, and how can you argue with Julianne Moore?

Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom
by Christiane Northrup
Bantam, $20

I've always loved the holistic approach of this book. Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom powerfully demonstrates that when women change the basic conditions of their lives that lead to health problems, they heal faster, more completely, and with far fewer medical interventions. Dr. Northrup talks about the best techniques of Western medicine and the best alternative therapies, showing how to incorporate both into a complementary whole. She guides readers through the entire range of women's health problems, and offers strikingly new, positive perspectives on normal processes, such as menstruation, pregnancy, and menopause.

The Beauty Myth
by Naomi Wolf
Harper, $14.95

As I get older, I get more and more hypersensitive to the way women are portrayed on television, and to the pressure women are under to be gorgeous, thin, feminine, pretty.  Always reaching for some unattainable ideal of beauty.  Naomi Wolf's book is one of the best in showing how the myth of perfect beauty is a form of social control and devastating to women who fall into its endless, destructive cycle.

Dr. Susan Love's Breast Book
by Dr. Susan Love
Da Capo, $22

I'm lucky that breast cancer doesn't run in my family. No cancer really does. But it didn't run in the family of one of my college friends either, and she still discovered a lump one morning. I like this book, even if it is a little older, because it does such a good job of explaining all the thing implied by the term "breast cancer" -- the treatments, the process, the expectations.  

The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine
by Anne Harrington
WW Norton, $25.95

People suffering from serious illnesses improve their survival chances by adopting a positive attitude and refusing to believe in the worst. Stress is the great killer of modern life. Ancient Eastern mind-body techniques can bring us balance and healing. We've all heard claims like these, and many find them plausible. When it comes to disease and healing, we believe we must look beyond doctors and drugs; we must look within ourselves. Faith, relationships, and attitude matter.  But why do we believe such things? From psychoanalysis to the placebo effect to meditation, this vibrant history describes our commitments to mind-body healing as rooted in a patchwork of stories that have allowed people to make new sense of their suffering, express discontent with existing care, and rationalize new treatments and lifestyles. These stories are sometimes supported by science, sometimes quarrel with science, but are all ultimately about much more than just science.

Mayo Clinic Book of Alternative Medicine
Time Life, $24.95

A good general reference book about alternative medicine that you can trust and founded in well-documented scientific research.

Natural Choices for Women's Health
by Laurie Steelsmith
Three Rivers, $15.95

In this completely accessible guide, Dr. Laurie Steelsmith shows how women can create a lifetime of optimal well-being by blending the extraordinary benefits of natural medicine from both the Western tradition and ancient Chinese teachings. Outlining a Naturally Healthy Lifestyle that enhances the body's own health-sustaining abilities, Steelsmith identifies ten crucial components of a woman's health--the immune system, kidneys, liver, digestive system, heart, hormones, bones, breasts, pelvis, and mental health--and provides dozens of tips to help maintain peak condition.